Working on complex systems: What I learned working at Google
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Re: Working on complex systems: What I learned working at Google
#2Let's add a post scriptum:
Whatever you're working on, your project is not likely to be at Google's scale and very unlikely to be a "complex system".
Re: Working on complex systems: What I learned working at Google
#3Let's add a post scriptum: Whatever you're working on, your project is not likely to be at Google's scale and very unlikely to be a "complex system".
Let's add a post post scriptum :)
Just because your project might not be at Google's scale doesn't mean it is therefore also not complex [^1]
Example: I'd say plenty of games fit the author's definition of "complex systems". Even the well-engineered ones (and even some which could fit on a floppy disc)
[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirming_the_consequent
Re: Working on complex systems: What I learned working at Google
#4Let's add a post scriptum: Whatever you're working on, your project is not likely to be at Google's scale and very unlikely to be a "complex system".
Don't underestimate my colleagues' abilities to turn the simple into the complex!
Re: Working on complex systems: What I learned working at Google
#5> My immediate reaction in my head was: "This is impossible". But then, a teammate said: "But we're Google, we should be able to manage it!".
Google, where the impossible stuff is reduced to merely hard, and the easy stuff is raised to hard.
Re: Working on complex systems: What I learned working at Google
#6Let's add a post scriptum: Whatever you're working on, your project is not likely to be at Google's scale and very unlikely to be a "complex system".
For small scale one can build a simple system but I see many are trying to copy FAANG architecture anyway. IMHO it’s a fallacy - people think that if they’ll would copy architecture used by google their company will be successful like google. I think it other was around - google has to build complex systems because it has many users.
Re: Working on complex systems: What I learned working at Google
#7 "This is one possible characteristic of complex systems: they behave in ways that can hardly be predicted just by looking at their parts, making them harder to debug and manage."
Re: Working on complex systems: What I learned working at Google
#8Let's add a post scriptum: Whatever you're working on, your project is not likely to be at Google's scale and very unlikely to be a "complex system".
For small scale one can build a simple system but I see many are trying to copy FAANG architecture anyway. IMHO it’s a fallacy - people think that if they’ll would copy architecture used by google their company will be successful like google. I think it other was around - google has to build complex systems because it has many users.
Yes, it's called "cargo cult" and it applies to a lot of architecture and processes decisions in IT :)
Re: Working on complex systems: What I learned working at Google
#9Let's add a post scriptum: Whatever you're working on, your project is not likely to be at Google's scale and very unlikely to be a "complex system".
Managing complexity pays off sooner than one would think.
Even a project that's like 15k lines of code would benefit from a conscious effort to fight against complexity.
Re: Working on complex systems: What I learned working at Google
#10One of my pet peeves with the usage of complex(ity) out of the traditional time/space in computer science is that most of the time the OPs of several articles over the internet do not make the distinction between boundaried/arbitrary complexity, where most of the time the person has most of the control of what is being implemented, and domain/accidental/environmental complexity, which is wide open and carries a lot of intrinsic and most of the time unsolvable constraints.
Yes, they are Google; yes, they have a great pool of talent around; yes, they do a lot of hard stuff; but most of the time when I read those articles, I miss those kinds of distinctions.
Not lowballing the guys at Google, they do amazing stuff, but in some domains of domain/accidental/environmental complexity (e.g. sea logistics, manufacturing, industry, etc.) where most of the time you do not have the data, I believe that they are way more complex/harder than most of the problems that the ones that they deal with.